at all, but Earl's daddy. He was such a great man, it was said, that his own sons were overwhelmed by him. One ran away and t'other kilt hisself at fifteen. That was a sad, sad day, but Earl's daddy kept going, because he was a man who did his duty and knowed what his duty was. Hell, in the '20s, he killed three bank robbers. And many's the big-city boy or the uppity nigger who thought he could put one over on Earl's daddy and ended up with a knot on his head the size of a pie plate, for Earl's daddy brooked no nonsense, had fast hands, the lawman's will and a leather birdshot sap that seemed never far from his right hand.
Carlo went to the cemetery. There was the big monument that read CHARLES F. SWAGGER, CAPT. AEF 1918 SHERIFF 1920, 1891–1942 and 'Duty Above All' in marble bas relief on a pedestal atop which stood the sculpture of a patriotic American eagle, its wings unfurled to the sky, its talons taut and gripping. The wife was nowhere to be found, nor was the younger son.
'Now that one,' said a Negro caretaker who noticed the young man, 'that one, he was a stern fellow. He didn't take no guff, no sir. He put the fear of God in every-damn-body.'
'He was a great man, I hear,' said Carlo.
The old man laughed, showing few teeth and pink gums. 'Oh, he surely was,' he said, 'a very damn great man!' He toddled off, chording.
Carl went to the newspaper office, and looked up in the bound volumes the story of the tragic day of Charles's death. Wasn't much. Evidently old Charles had been coming back from his monthly Baptist prayer weekend at Caddo Gap, driving through Mount Ida late, and he saw the door open behind Ferrell Turner's liquors. He parked his car and got out his flashlight and went to investigate, even if he was in Montgomery County and not Polk. He was close to Polk, just a few miles, he saw what could have been a crime and he went to investigate.
One shot was fired by a burglar and down the old hero went. Probably some damned kids with a stolen gun and some hooch, looking for more hooch before they went off to war. Simple, stupid, tragic; they found him the next day and buried him two days later. It was a shame Earl's daddy had to die so pitifully. Both his boys was gone then, his wife was a drunkard and nobody from the family showed up when that great man was put to rest, but most of the rest of the county was there, great men and small, rich men and poor, man, woman and child, for in some way Earl's daddy had affected them all.
Carlo spoke to the new sheriff, a veteran named Beaumont Piney who'd been training for North Africa when Earl's daddy had gotten killed, and to the mayor and to other politicians, deputies and municipal employees and never got much beyond the recognition of Charles's greatness. But finally, on the third day, and a poindess interview with the county attorney, he heard a voice on his way out coming from down the hall.
'Goddammit, Betty, right here, I said 'Fifteenth,' but you just typed 15-h without no damn r/You have to type the goddamn thing over. Can't you be more careful, goddammit!'
The woman sniveled and wept and then the screamer stopped screaming and Carlo heard, 'I'm sorry, it ain't nothing, I got to watch my damn temper, please, Betty, I didn't mean nothing, it don't matter.'
And the secretary said, 'But Mr. Vincent, my name is Ruth, not Betty. And I've worked here three whole weeks.'
'Oh,' said the man. 'My last secretary was named Betty.'
'No sir,' Ruth said, 'she was named Phyllis. Don't make a difference, though. Both Betty and Phyllis quit.'
'Now don't you quit, Ruth. I don't mean no harm. I just yell too damn much. Here, now, I have an idea. Why don't you take this afternoon off?'
'Well, sir?'
'No, no, I insist. I yelled, you got upset, you got to take a nice afternoon off.'
There was some shuffling, but in a second a woman came out, her hat on, her eyes reddened and swollen, and a formidably large, sheltering bear of a man led her out as if he were taking his infirm mother to see the doctor.
The couple walked by Carlo without noticing, and as they went, Carlo finally saw the name on the door of the now empty office: SAMUEL C. VINCENT, ASSISTANT PROSECUTING ATTORNEY.
He walked in and waited in the outer office and waiting room.
In a minute or so, the large man returned, his eyes black with intensity. His hair was a thatch that had never seen a comb and grew in every direction and he wore frameless specs that blew his dark eyes up like camera lenses. He was fleshy, not soft but large and strong. His suit fit like it'd been bought off the rack by someone who knew nothing about suits and it was covered with flecks of burnt ash.
'Who the hell are you, sonny?' he demanded, fixing the young man with a glare.
'Sir, my name is C. D. Henderson. I'm an investigator with the Garland County Prosecuting Attorney's Office,' he said. He got out his badge and offered it to the man, whose eyes flashed that way, then back to his face, where they lit square and angrily.
'What the hell problems they got in Garland County bring 'em over here to Polk? Your Fred Becker has enough fun gittin' his picture in the paper all the damn time, what's he need over here? He going to start raiding in Polk now? B'lieve the colored folk rim some illegal bingo in their church on Saturday night. That'd be a good raid. Hell, he'd get lots of ink out of that one!'
Carlo let the squall blow past, tried to look as bland as possible.
'Sir,' he said, 'this isn't anything about that. Mr. Becker don't even know I'm here. I'm here at the request of my supervisor, Mr. D. A. Parker.'
'Parker! The old gunfighter! Yeah, he's the kind of boy you'd want if you'd be going to bang down doors and shoot places up! You don't look like no gunfighter to me, son. Do you shave yet?'
'Onct a week, sir.'
'You was probably in the war, though. You was probably a general in the war?'
'No sir. Spent two months in Florida in the Air Corps, till they realized I didn't see colors too well. That's why I'm a policeman.'
'Well, come on in, but let me warn you, I hope you ain't no fool, because I am not the sort who can stay civil in the presence of fools. You're not a fool, are you?'
'Hope not, sir.'
'Good.'
The assistant prosecuting attorney led him into the office, which was not merely a mess but already half afog with pipe smoke. A deer head hung off the wall, but possibly it had died of asphyxiation, not a rifle bullet. In one corner well-thumbed legal volumes lay behind a glass case. The rest was documents, case folders, police reports, everywhere. Literally: everywhere.
'Let me tell you it ain't easy running a county when your prosecutor is a political hack like ours,' said Mr. Vincent. 'May have to run for the goddamn job myself one of these damned days. Now, sit down, tell me what you're investigating and why you came all the way out to the West.' He began to fiddle with a pipe, clearly feeling the room wasn't smoky enough.
'Well, sir, I'm looking into the background of a man bom and raised here in Polk County. You may know him.'
'Earl. You'd be the johnny asking about Earl. Thought so.' He got the pipe fired up, and belched a smokestack's worth of gassy unpleasantness into the air, which hung and seethed. The young man's eyes immediately began to water.
'Let me tell you something, sonny. If Earl's involved in that ruckus over in Hot Springs, it'd be a damned shame. Not after what Earl gone through. I'd hate to see Earl die to make Fred C. Becker the youngest governor in the nation. That would be as pure a crime as any Owney Maddox ever perpetrated. Is he on that raid team?'
'Sir, that is confidential information. No one knows who is on that raid team.'
The older man fulminated a little. 'No finer man was ever born in these here parts than Earl. He went off to war and won the Medal of Honor. Did you know that?'
'I knew he won a big medal.'
'He did. He fought all over the Pacific. He's as foursquare as they come. If you're investigating him, you'd better have a goddamned good reason, or I'll throw you out of my office on your bony young ass myself.'
'Sir, he ain't be investigated for no crime. No sir.'
'What, then?'
'Well sir, as Mr. Parker explained it to me there's something called a 'death wish.''
